A huffy Canada shuts down ‘Yes Men’

Stung by a satire at the Copenhagen climate conference, Canada’s government has shut down two parody Web sites criticizing the Great White North’s glacial policy on global warming.

In the process, however, it has taken down 4,500 other Web sites that had nothing to do with the prank played two weeks ago at the global climate summit.

The two “offending” sites, developed by “Yes Men” pranksters, announced that Canada would reduce greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 40 percent from 1990 levels, and 80 percent by the year 2050.

The “announcement” came as Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government was privately circulating a plan to permit a 165 percent INCREASE in emissions from Alberta’s huge, dirty oil sands project.

The two Web sites, “enviro-canada.ca” and “ec-gc.ca” are “directly connected to a hoax which misleads people into believing that the Government of Canada will take certain actions in relation to environmental matters,” Mike Landreville from Environment Canada wrote in an e-mail to the German Internet Service Provider (ISP) Serveloft.

“We trust you appreciate the importance of avoiding confusion among the public concerning Canadian governmental affairs and that you will assist us in preventing this hoax from spreading further.”

Going further, Landreville asked the ISP to “make every effort to prevent any further attempts concerning other environment-related domains (enviro, ec-gc, etc.) originating from your servers.”

The Great White North carries weight with ISP.

Serverloft immediately turned off a wide block of provider addresses, knocking out 4,500 websites that had nothing to do with “Yes Men” or the parody that raises such hackles among Harper’s minions.

“We are sorry to see that the Canadian government will not ‘take certain actions’ that could help stave off catastrophic climate change,” said Mike Bonanno of “Yes Men,” “and we are sorry to see that they don’t care so much for free speech.”

The “Yes Men” made international headlines with the parody. The hoax emission target was announced on official-looking Environment Canada stationary. A replica of the United Nations conference center podium to show “delegate” from Uganda praising the plan.

It was the second successful parody this year for the loosely knit group. “Yes Men” had staged a fake news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. A “spokesman” for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce announced that the chamber was ending its years-long lobbying campaign against climate legislation.

The hoax was revealed when an official from the real U.S. Chamber of Commerce showed up and got into a shouting match with the imposter.

The Canadian government reacted to the parody in Copenhagen by throwing a public
tantrum.

An aide to Harper sent Canadian newspapers a furious denunciation of what he called “a childish prank,” and was filmed furiously (and falsely) accusing a leading Quebec environmentalist of being behind it.

On the same night, however, CBC News revealed a paper circulating in Harper’s cabinet. It listed a much lower emissions reduction target, and plans to go easy on Canada’s oil and gas industry.

A trio of Canadian provincial premiers – most notably Quebec Premier Jean Charest – excoriated the federal government for its weak environmental politicies.

The Climate Action Network, a global coalition of “green” groups, awarded Canada its “Colossal Fossil” prize for worst behavior in the Copenhagen negotiations.